


The Maiden of the Sea

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Series: The coming of spring [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Childbirth, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Face-Sitting, Marriage, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, PTSD, Post canon, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Reunion, Reunion Sex, Teasing, arya returns to westeros, arya said goodbye goddammit, domestic life, medieval road trips, minor omc/omc - Freeform, post canon fix it, time skiiiips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22554310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: Three years after leaving Westeros on somewhat uncertain terms, Arya Stark returns to Storm's End, head full of uncertainty, and seeks to dig out her own place within it's walls.Same universe asat the end they formed a true lovers' knotandin the bleak midwinter, but can be read on it's own.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: The coming of spring [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760227
Comments: 43
Kudos: 252





	1. Chapter 1

Three years. That’s how long she’s been gone from Westeros when Arya leads the crew of the Nymeria to dock in the Stormlands, bids their farewell, and begins to make her way up the road to Storm’s End. 

She’d sold the Nymeria to an older man who wanted another in his merchant fleet. She bid him to take good care of her. The last day, Arya had stood on deck, the winter sun strong on her back and taken a deep breath, of the smell of seaweed and damp wood and ocean breezes, and said goodbye again. 

Some of the crew stay with her, say they’ll see her along her way, see her to the end. Arya had picked her crew carefully and her heart swelled at the loyalty they’d gained. 

Merope had been a cook in the Red Keep when King’s Landing had been burned, killing her husband and all three of her children. When Arya had met her, she’d been only looking for passage. Desperate to get anywhere without cinders and ashes. She could make a meal out of nearly anything they fished out of the seawaters, and Arya credits her with the crew’s high spirits for nearly the entire three years. 

Two of her seamen, Daron and Tim have been unfailing loyal to her the whole trip. She hadn’t given them much thought when she’d brought them aboard, other than musing that they seemed close already. That changed a few moons into the voyage when she’d stumbled onto them below deck one night with their hands down each other’s breeches. 

Arya still remembers the look of terror of Daron’s face as he stood there, with Tim fumbling with his laces. It angers her honestly, that they thought they had to be that frightened. 

She had sighed and put a hand to her forehead in exasperation. 

“I don’t much care what you do with each others cocks so long as you don’t do it when you’re supposed to be working. Hurry up, you have to relieve first watch. And you better spend your time actually watching!”

Sadly, this loyalty did not remedy the fact that the two of them were absolute complete knuckleheads. They had both looked at her with empty faces when she tried to talk about the politics she’d witnessed in King’s Landing, and she was as likely to catch them having a spitting contest on watch as carrying on .

When Arya had raised an eyebrow that they were going to accompany her, they had shrugged. 

“You’ve been good to us captain,” Daron had said. He was of Dornish descent, his parents having immigrated to King’s Landing before dying of the grippe, and he had the dark hair and olive skin expected. “Better than most would have.”

“And,” Tim adds, sparing a glance to their clasped hands, “We’ve heard tales of Renly Baratheon for years. Seems like if people in the Stormlands find out about us, they might at least be aware that we exist already.”

Jas was her boatswain. He was older than her, maybe thirty with sand colored hair and light eyes. He had been on and off of boats since he was thirteen and knew them inside and out. He was quiet, incredibly. It was moons into the voyage when Arya finally managed to pry his story from him. 

He’d been shy, quiet for most of his life, he admitted. Girls never paid him any nevermind, and he’d nearly become accepting of his life of loneliness, when he’d met Kem. 

Kem had been the daughter of a fishmonger, with dark curls and a smile that lit up the room. Jas had told Arya that she could talk enough for the both of them. He had loved her in an instant, and to his shock, she loved him too. They had been married only a year, during which he hadn’t gone back to sea for more than a few days at a time, when Danaerys had burned King’s Landing. Jas had been onboard when it happened, and it had taken him weeks of hunting through the ruins and smoke trying to find someone, anyone, who might know. Who eventually confirmed his worst nightmares. 

He would never go back to King’s Landing, he told Arya, but he didn’t much mind where he was otherwise. 

He had reached out and ruffled her hair. 

“Besides, I’d like to see you through to wherever you end up.”

And so, once the ship has been sold and the crew set on their ways, Arya gives them all their pay, their share of the bounty they’ve gathered in their explorations, and the groups split.

Storm’s End looms in the distance, even when they’re still quite a bit away. It rises out of the landscape, calling the eye to it. It’s been storming for several days and the ground is wet and hard to ride on, so it’s slow going. 

Long enough for Arya to dwell on how they parted.

_“I will come back,” Arya promises, unprompted. She’s tucked under one arm, sweat drying and chest heaving. It must be a half dozen times they’ve ended up like this since the Long Night, since she refused his proposal, and they haven’t talked about it. She wishes they would. She loves the fucking, but she misses the talking._

_Gendry grabs one of her hands and kisses each knuckle._

_“I don’t know when, but I will, I swear it. I’m not saying you have to wait for me, Gods knows I have no right to tell you what to do with your own life, but I won’t be gone forever.”_

_He doesn’t say a word, and for a rare moment she can’t read his gaze._

_“How long until you set sail?”_

_“A few hours.”_

_He doesn’t say another word, just rolls over and settles between her legs. He reaches under one knee, pressing it against her chest as he enters her. He fucks her rough, fast, pressing down with nearly all his weight, but his eyes never leave hers. Arya mewls and grunts and cries out, scratching at his shoulders. If she marks him, he doesn’t seem to mind._

_After, she dresses, and leaves for parts unknown._

On the remaining ride to the gate of the keep, Arya tries to find her words. The words she couldn’t find before for what she needed to find. How she needed to fill up all of the bits of herself that had been hard and empty for far too long.

And tries to keep away her other thoughts. 

The thought that he took her words to heart, and decided to find himself a nice, proper lady to rule by his side. She tries to fight off the spite she feels for this unnamed, as-so-far non-existent woman. 

The thought that maybe his silence was actually hiding resentment. That maybe three years later she wouldn’t even be welcomed as a friend. She would deserve it, she thinks. 

Arya’s so lost in her thoughts that she barely notices when Jas nudges her and points out that they’ve reached the gate. 

She even stumbles over her words when they call out. She can’t remember ever doing that before. 

But the gates open, and they are led in, and the man says he will retrieve Lord Baratheon shortly. 

Lord Baratheon. Arya feels her tongue roll around the words. Part of her still expects to see fat, old Robert to come through the door. 

Instead, she comes face to face with the same pair of blue eyes that have haunted her dreams for the past three years. 

His hair has grown longer, she’s happy for that. He looks better fed, has more color to him. He’s dressed in clothes that are plain, but clearly well made and well fitted. He looks like he fits. 

And upon seeing Gendry Baratheon again, Arya feels herself grin. And despite the fears in the pit of her stomach, he reaches and clasps one of her hands with a warm smile in return. 

“Lady Arya,” he says, with a sparkle in his eye that tells her he is inviting mocking, “Welcome to Storm’s End.”

And suddenly Arya feels like things might just end up alright.

Gendry calls for an early supper. It’s a simple one, roast venison with root vegetables and an apple pudding. The group still tucks in, despite Merope’s skill, most of the meals for the voyage have come from a barrel. The Round table is large enough that they have some semblance of peace, and they may rest and tell their tales.

“So you made it all the way to Essos?”

Arya brightens. 

“There’s a steady current out from King’s Landing that will take you the long way. We stopped at Oldstown to give the maesters the map we made of it along the way.”

Gendry frowns for a moment, 

“So you sailed all that way and saw nothing but sea?”

Arya shakes her head, and Tim and Daron take turns interjecting. 

“There’s a bunch of islands in between that no one from Westeros even knew about.”

“We anchored on one with these huge spiky fruits-”

“They make great weapons by the way-”

“When you crack them open they taste like sweet cream.”

Arya cuts them both off with a look. 

“One at a time.”

But the rest of their stories spill out of their lips, well past when the rest of the household have left the hall. They tell him of the swirl’n’sea where crossing could result in your ship getting caught and turned around right back the same way you came.

Arya is deeply pleased by the look in his eyes when she produces a lump of the strange purplish metal they’d been given a sample of when they had reached Essos. They had called it iridium. 

One by one, Arya’s crew asks to be dismissed, and Gendry summons a servant to show them to the guest chambers. 

And it’s in the middle of her story about an island they had found that had the most heart achingly beautiful view of a waterfall that Arya suddenly realizes they’re completely alone.

She realizes this mid-sentence, and feels her face suddenly flush red.

Gendry notices, and his smirk makes her equal parts warm and indignant. 

“Shall I show to your room milady?” He asks her, slowly, with words that seem far too careful. How on earth can he be so calm right now? Arya feels like she might be on fire. 

She stands, wiggles her eyebrows and reaches for his hand. 

“Only if it’s close.”

Arya’s heart is thumping all the way. She squeezes Gendry’s hand, in hopes of keeping herself upright. This keep has far too many stairs. 

But sooner than she realizes, they’re at a door. Gendry hastily unbolts it, and lets them in. Arya doesn’t even get a chance to look at what the Lord’s chambers here look like before her back is pressed into the door and Gendry’s lips are upon hers. 

When he pulls back to look at her again, Arya forces herself to raise an eyebrow. Attempting to retain some dignity from the stupid grin she can feel on her face.

“Arya,” Gendry whispers, “You’re smiling. I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile.”

He moves his lips to her neck. He’s so busy sucking a love bite onto her pulse point she barely realizes he’s untying her breeches until he’s shoved them to the ground and his fingers are working against her. 

He makes her come like that, standing straight against the door, his mouth kissing her throat and whispering about how badly he’d missed her. 

As she comes down, she can see the bulge against his own breeches and the blatant need on his face, and she wonders how she could ever worried that he might not still want her .

She puts her hands on either side of his face and kisses him tenderly, before taking pity on him and pushing him back towards the bed.

Gendry’s already got his own breeches undone when he hits the featherbed, but Arya’s too eager so she pushes his hands out of the way and shoves his breeches down with one hand and palms his cock with the other while he rids himself of his woolen doublet. She pulls her own tunic off in such a haste she thinks she might have torn it, and notes that he’s so hard she wonders if he might actually explode before she gets him inside her. 

She straddles his lap like the first time, but this time he’s sitting straight up. She presses her knees neatly about his waist and sinks down onto him, and in that moment, she feels for the first time in ages like she’s home.

Gendry rests his hands on either side of her arse and squeezes. Arya can tell by his face that he’s not going to last, so she slows. Rather than raising and lowering, she simply grinds herself against him, hips rocking under his fingers, and though she doesn’t quite make it to a second climax when he spills inside her, she still feels so warm and tender all over she can’t quite make herself mind.

They both collapse back against the linens, and Arya feels the same stupid grin sprout on her face. 

Gendry rubs the tip of his nose against hers. His eyes are drifting shut, and he’s smiling a slow, lazy grin that makes her feel less self conscious about her own. 

He nuzzles her face, gently wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her back towards him.

“I’m glad you’re home,” he whispers to her, thumbs making a series of small circles along her collarbone.

“You’re- are you, what I mean-”

Will you ask again? Is what she wants to say, but even these years later she can’t find the words. The words that brought up the panic within her, after being laid out, vulnerable, in the home where she had not been since she was a child.

Gendry runs a line of kisses down her sternum, before resting his face there, and gazing up at her. 

“Details. We can work all of that out later. “

Arya’s heart swells. It feels like it’s grown so much it fills up every bit of her down to her toes, and threatens to spill out. 

She grabs a hand to pull Gendry over on top of her, and kisses him, slowly, hoping some of her emotions will make themselves clear to him. With a wandering hand, she realizes he’s hard again.

“Already?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow. 

Gendry laughs. 

“It’s been three years. I’m eager.”

She wiggles a bit and he enters her smoothly. She had tried not to think about it, but it does make her feel honored that he’s spent the last three years as celibate as she has. 

He thrusts into her slowly, occasionally pushing his hips in a circular motion, making her squeal and groan, and rise quickly to the near peak she’d been before. His fingers sneak down and find her nub and rub it until she comes not once but twice around him. 

When they’re collapsed against the bed again after, Arya feels completely boneless. It feels like an hour before she can even summon the energy to stand and find a rag by the washbasin to clean the mess from between her thighs. 

“Oh!” Arya suddenly hears from behind her and it makes her jump, “I didn’t even- should I have-”

“It’s fine,” she tells Gendry, “I’ll go find the maester in the morning. And if it’s too late- well, it won’t be the worst thing ever.”

Arya feels a strange sense of calm. She feels like she should panic, but doesn’t. She never expected to take to this so easily. It’s with this peace that she lays and curls up on the bed. 

The bed is less large and opulent than she had expected from one in the keep of a great house. When she tells Gendry this, he laughs. 

“Wood ants got at the old one, no one had slept in it in so long. The steward was more upset than I was, he’d been in his position since my uncle ruled and he seemed to think it would make me think he was shirking his duties. I took the chance to replace it with something simple. Don’t want to be known as the upstart who got above himself.“

“That’s not who you are,” Arya insists, “And don’t let anyone tell you any different,” she rolls onto her side and nestles in his arms, “And don’t worry about me, you know I’m as happy on a pile of grain sacks as I am in a featherbed.”

She falls asleep like that, and stays quite comfortable the whole night. 

Well, until she’s woken by Gendry kissing the back of her neck, his cock pressing against her arse and a whisper of “Wanna go again?”

Which, yes, they’ve got three whole years to make up for.

Arya’s woken in the morning by the sunlight coming through the windows, a crick in her shoulder, and a pleasant tenderness between her legs. 

She rolls over to stretch out the crick and takes the time to take in the beauty that is Gendry, nude and unburdened. He's flat on his back, legs bent, cock rising from it's nest of curls and mouth hanging open.

It had made her sad at Winterfell, to discover that he didn’t sleep naked anymore. He had laughed at her, and told her it was too damn cold up north to do much of anything naked, and besides, he owned more than one set of clothes now. 

One of the islands they Arya and her crew had visited on their journey had a waterfall that fed into a small lagoon. At twilight, the water caught the light just right and made a rainbow as the sun went down. 

It was the second most beautiful thing Arya has ever seen, the winner being the man in front of her.

She decides to wake him by kissing his chin. He doesn’t quite have a beard, but the stubble on him is more than a few days worth. It’s a bit scratchy under her tongue, but she likes the feeling. By the time she’s turned her attention to his earlobes, the love bites she’d given his neck last night, and the little burn scars on his collarbone, he’s started moving underneath her, and gathers her up in his arms. 

“Was a little worried I might wake up and you’d be gone,” Gendry murmurs in her ear, eyes still mostly shut with sleep. 

Arya smiles ruefully, and kisses him, pinching his lower lip between her own and sucking a little. 

“Never. Well, unless I have shit that needs doing. Which, I do, we both do, but it can wait.”

She pushes her hands against his chest, relishing feeling the smarting of dark hair across it. 

“But it’s been three years, let me have at you a bit.”

She kisses him up and down his chest, down the smooth expanse of his stomach, sticking her tongue in his navel just to make him laugh. The sound Gendry makes when she reaches her destination and takes his hard cock in her mouth is one she will treasure the rest of her life.

Arya runs her lips along his length, sucking hard on the head, letting her tongue play with his foreskin. He’s got a hand buried in her hair, that pulls tight when she takes him as deep as she can and she reaches a steadying hand on his stomach before letting it out with a ‘pop’. 

“No sudden movements ok?” she says, before sinking lower and gently sucking one of his balls into her mouth, and then other, soft brown hairs tickling her nose. 

“You’re going to kill me Arya, I swear,” he tells her in a breathy, strained voice that makes her wet between the thighs. 

She laughs around his cock, and the noises that drags from him are fucking incredible. She moves back to sucking on his shaft, feeling him the heat and weight of him between her lips, watching him get closer and closer to losing his mind. 

She could stay here forever, she thinks. Warm and naked in the morning sun, loving on Gendry until they are both old and gray. 

But alas, they are responsibilities to be had. 

Jas leaves after another day, giving Arya a tight hug, telling her he’ll be finding work at the docks the next town over. Only the most foolhardy of sailors will risk the waters of Shipbreaker’s Bay in winter time, but plenty will get as close as they can. 

Gendry shakes his hand before he goes. 

“Thank you for being there for her,” he says, “She’s not the best at letting people do that.”

There are no guard positions open for Daron and Tim (a fact which makes Arya secretly grateful, for she’s not sure they could guard their own arses, much less a castle), but Gendry says the armory is in desperate need of a few extra men. 

“Ignore noises from there,” she tells Gendry as they leave the armory behind, “It’s probably them bouncing swords off the suits of armor to try and play music.”

Arya doesn’t see Merope for a few days, and wonders if she’d left without saying goodbye until she bumps into her in the kitchen, having walked in and started working without a bye or a leave. 

The former head cook had just shrugged, and told Arya she’d done a good job, so they let her stay. 

The servants at Storm’s End listen to her and nod in her direction, but don’t call her anything other than “milady,” and Arya suddenly wonders if Gendry had told them about her before she’d arrived.

It’s an adjustment. Storm’s End isn’t much like Winterfell, where the buildings were all spread out and you had to walk to get between them. Nearly all of the keep here is contained in the single drum tower, and Arya hates to admit that after only a few days, she begins to feel a bit trapped. 

She had loved the sea, loved the freedom to go wherever the wind took her. It was what she needed, to remember how to be Arya Stark. 

And Arya Stark doesn’t want to leave the people she loves again, so she finds her space. She remembers Father years ago saying that the Godswood was where he liked to go to think, so she asks where the one here is. 

It’s smaller than the one at Winterfell. Most of the trees are very young, having been replanted after Stannis had burned them. The heart tree, a weirwood cutting sent a year ago by Bran, had barely even begun to take root. But it’s quiet, and calm. The largest of the young trees is by a pool that’s closer to a pond, and it’s a fine place to sit. 

Arya’s resting her head against the trunk, drifting off, when she hears footsteps. 

“Can I join you?” Gendry asks, sitting beside her as she nods. 

“I thought you had petitions?” she asks. 

Gendry nods, “Davos offered to finish up for me since he’s leaving tomorrow. I told him he didn’t have to but he insists. I think he feels like he’s abandoning me, even though I told him I have you now and I’ve kept him from his own wife for long enough.”

Arya feels herself flush at the comparison. She doesn’t say much more before Gendry takes her face in his hands and kisses her. 

As he unties the strings on her linen tunic and pulls it over her head, Gendry asks her, “I don’t know much about the old gods, doing this here isn’t blasphemy or something is it?”

“Fuck the old gods,” is Arya’s take, when Gendry flings her tunic aside, sheds his own, and begins to work on the ties of her breeches. 

When she’s naked, he stops to imagine what he sees. It’s cool enough that her nipples are hard little pebbles. Most of her is quite pale, with jagged tan lines from the boat across her back and shoulders, along with the scars he’s traced with his hands and mouth. 

When he finishes with her breeches, Gendry takes one of her knees in each hand, eyes intent on her cunt, soft brown curls surrounding her wet, pink folds, and fucking licks his lips. 

He leans up to kiss her sweetly. 

“You look like the girl from that song Tom O’Sevens used to sing, ‘The Maiden of the Tree’.”

Arya snorts, remembering. She used to think that song was talking about a girl like her ‘no featherbed for me’. Of course, it brushed over what being lost and dirty and hurt was really like. And a featherbed was quite nice if you were sharing it with the right person. 

And then Gendry slides forward, and begins eating her cunt like a starving man, and she can’t think anymore. 

After, sweaty and breathless, Arya squeaks out a “I guess I should thank whichever girl taught you that.”

She feels Gendry freeze and let out an “Erm…” and she raises an eyebrow.

He flops, and sits up beside her. His breeches are still on, but are untied from when he couldn’t help himself and had pulled out his cock and started stroking it even as he still had his tongue between her folds. 

“Not a girl...Jon once told me that was how he won the heart of that wildling girl he loved, the one who died.”

Oh, as much as Arya really didn’t need the mental image of Jon doing that to anyone, it’s overshadowed by the sadness that they all have survived.

Gendry wraps an arm around her. 

“The last time we were out in the woods like this was before we ran into the Brotherhood.”

Arya looks at him, wondering where this is going. 

“After we left Harrenhal, it seemed like things might actually turn out for us all. I let myself drift off and imagine what I thought the world might let me have if it were kind. A little house, my own shop. The chance to distinguish my work, make something of myself. “

He reaches out and ruffles Arya’s hair, which has a stray stick stuck in it. 

“And at some point, I realized that in all these fantasies, you were still there. It wasn’t like, well, this,” he says, gesturing at her nakedness, “That never even crossed my mind until years later when I wondered what you had grown up like...if you’d grown up at all…”

Arya snorts. 

“I think that’s why I pushed back so hard when we met up with the Brotherhood. I realized what I imagined wasn’t possible at all. That even if my thoughts weren’t inappropriate, everyone would assume they were.”

Arya studies him. Gendry’s not a man of many words, and this may be the most of them she’s ever heard him string together. 

“What are you trying to say?” she asks. 

Gendry takes both of her hands in his. 

“I know what I asked you before scared you. But that’s all I’ve ever wanted, was you with me, beside me. Just as you are.”

Arya feels a smile take over her face. She should have known better, he’d seen her at her worse. He’d never expect her to wear gowns, or hold her tongue, or remember her courtesies. It’s not like he was any good at any of that either. 

“I still don’t want you to call me ‘My lady’,” she starts off, kissing one of his knuckles, “But I think I could handle other people calling me yours.”

As they kiss, quietly, Arya listens to the sounds of the quiet rain that’s begun to fall. It rains a lot here, and the sea swells, and the waves crash of the shore and the rocks, in their ageless battle against complacency. They should go inside soon, she thinks, but for now she’s content. 

Maybe she’s not the maiden of the tree. Might be she’s a bit closer to the maiden of the sea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that this chapter contains references to footjobs/fetishes, anal sex and watersports- but not in a sexy way in a "shit you might see in a brothel" way.

“Who were your other three?”

Gendry looks up from the paper he is writing on, inktip hovering just a breath away from it. 

“Arya...are you really asking me about other women I’ve been with while we’re planning our wedding?”

Arya scoots her chair closer to him. They’re sitting at the table in his solar, trying to pin down a guest list that’s small enough for their sensibilities but large enough not to offend anyone. 

Arya frowns at his words. The only reason she’d even asked before was because she had wanted to know if he was more like Robert than she’d thought. Wondered if she would end up just another in a long line of girls whose names he couldn’t even remember. 

“It’s just- well, I assumed none of them were before we met-”

“You would be correct-”

“And you never really talk about what happened to you after we got seperated,” Arya admits with honesty. 

Gendry sighs deeply, and rubs his temple. Arya suddenly wonders if she should have said anything, she doesn’t want to upset him. 

“After Davos set me free,” he begins slowly, “I, of course, got lost and came up on shore in the Crownlands a week’s ride from King’s Landing. I didn’t have any money so I went to the nearest village and started offering to do any kind of work they had for shelter. 

Well, the village had a brothel, and turns out, they had a lot of things that need fixing. Well, for like a year after what happened, I couldn’t stand even the thought of another woman touching me. I imagine I was probably a little rude to some of the girls who worked there because of it.”

Gendry purses his lips before the next line.

“One night, when I’d finished up replacing hinges on a door, one of the whores sat next to me. Her name was Renna, she was older, thirtyish maybe. She took one look at me and went ‘someone’s hurt you’. I was kind of appalled that she’d said anything at all, so I just kind of looked at her dumbly, and she clapped me on the shoulder and said ‘for two coppers I’ll make you forget everything about them’”.

The chair he’s sitting in is elaborated carved and finished wood. Arya carefully places herself on the arm, resting her arms on one of his shoulders. 

“Did she?”

Gendry sighs. 

“No, but it did make it easier. I just about threw up when she stripped and climbed on top of me, but she made me look at her and kept talking to me so that I wouldn’t forget who I was in bed with.”

“Oh,” Arya says suddenly, “Is that why you always want to sit up when I’m riding you?”

“...is that a better answer than because it’s the only position where I can suck a tit and squeeze your arse at the same time?”

Arya laughs, and playfully swats him on the shoulder. 

“That’s one.”

He smiles. 

“There was a girl who worked at a tavern in King’s Landing. I’d go there after work sometimes, we’d have an ale and complain about all the awful patrons we had to deal with that day. One thing led to another. I was never in love with her- and we both knew it - but it was nice, comfortable.”

Arya frowns. 

“What happened?”

“Her mother was killed when the Sept of Baelor exploded, and her and her younger sister were scrimping and saving to go and find the inn where their father worked in the Riverlands. I hugged her the day they finally got to leave King’s Landing. I was glad someone got to.”

“What was her name?”

“Jeyne,” there’s a long pause, “I wish I knew what happened to her.”

“You could write Bran, he might be able to tell you. And now that he’s acting like a person again, he might be able to tell you without humiliating or traumatizing you.”

That had been an adjustment. Realizing that her brother was not only her brother again, but that her brother was king of all of Westeros. And then had come the question of whether they should invite him to the wedding. Of all Arya’s siblings he was geographically the closest, but was that the sort of thing you really invited a king to?

“That’s two,” Arya says, returning to the topic. 

Gendry takes a deep breath. 

“A few weeks before Davos came and found me again, a merchant came in wanting a sword repaired. His daughter, Ysilla, came with him, she was a bit older than me- and she had...I’m not sure what you call it up north-”

He runs a finger up in the middle of his upper lip and draws a line.

“Oh,” Arya says, “A cleaved lip.”

“...I’ve always heard it called a rabbit’s lip, that way’s less mean. Well, hers had been sewn up, but not well, and it gave her a really bad scar. Well, she kept giving me these looks, and when her father left, she ran back and asked if she could come back and see me later.”

“...you didn’t even realize what she meant did you?”

Gendry shakes his head ruefully, and Arya squeezes his shoulder.

“Once a stupid bull…”

“She brought food though. I don’t think I really caught on until she kissed me. I think she thought if she stood too still I would make her leave.”

“She was scared to give you an opening to reject her,” Arya doesn’t tell him that she was sort of hoping for a similar shock tactic to work for her back before the Long Night. 

“I think she thought if she just kept going everything would work out. It worked until I was unlacing her dress and she started crying.”

Arya is confused. 

“If she was the one who…”

“I think she thought she was ugly and thought no one would ever want her so she threw herself at me. I just stepped back and told her to lace herself up and leave.”

Arya is even more confused now. 

“Why are you telling me about a girl you didn’t lay with?”

Gendry looks up at her through his lashes, and Arya catches a hint of shame. 

“That was already three…”

She catches on.

“Gendry…” her voice catches in her throat, “Nothing the red woman did was your fault. She tricked you-”

“She still-”

Arya cuts him off with a finger pressed to his lip.

“She hurt you. You said so yourself, it took you a year to let yourself be touched again. She shouldn’t get to be called your first, any more than Ramsey should get to be called Sansa’s. They can both burn.”

Gendry wraps an arm around her, and she presses her face into the crook of his shoulder. 

“Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve-”

He gestures around the room, with its rich decorations, and at the woman in his arms.

“All of this.”

Arya pinches the side of his cheek. 

“A combination of hard work, a good soul and excellent luck. And a worse man would have managed to already run this place into the ground.”

That had been a point of pride for Arya, coming back. Discovering that Gendry had spent his three years trying to become a good lord. When they had first come, he had taken Davos’s advice and taken a two moon trip around the region, to introduce himself to the other Stormlands houses, and figure out what each of them needed from him. 

And while he had hated nearly every minute of it, Gendry told her it had been eye opening. 

“Most of the houses have been taxed to their limits by Cersei. Most of them had only remained loyal due to her former marriage, and were on the brink of rebellion because of the rumors of her infidelity. And that’s not even factoring the damage the winter storms had done that needed repairs. I still wish you’d been able to come with me though. About half of those lords need their teeth kicked in.“

Arya laughed. This was on yet another day where they were both doing their best to skip out on wedding preparations. 

“Then our plan is a good one. We send announcements instead of invitations, and if anyone complains, we’ll tell them it’s because of your assessment that you didn’t want the other houses stressed by having to help out in the festivities.”

Festivities, which they now had an excuse to limit to the household of Storm’s End, the nearby village and a tiny handful of guests. 

Bran, as expected, could not attend. He did, however, send a lengthy letter which makes Arya’s heart sing, and Brienne in his stead. 

“He said he thought I should be given the opportunity to visit my father as well,” Brienne confides in her, “Though I should warn you, he also gave me permission to tease you as much as I like.”

Arya’s so pleased she can’t be made to care. It probably helps that she knows Brienne’s not exactly the teasing type.

Arya hadn’t been sure if Sansa would receive the announcement before the wedding, all the way up in Winterfell. It made her sad to think of her sister missing her wedding, but there was nothing to be done. 

Then, a delivery came, with a note. Reading it, Arya suspects Bran was involved somehow. 

“Should have expected you wouldn’t go about this the usual way. Sad I’ll miss it, but I hope this gift makes you happy as seeing me would.”

The way she phrased that makes Arya a bit apprehensive when she opens the package. The expanse of light gray silk makes a bit of sense though.

It’s not quite a gown, it barely comes to the top of her boots, and has two slits up the sides, it even came with a pair of close fitting black woolen breeches. The light gray is embroidered with shades of blue from nearly white to midnight. There’s another note inside. 

“I know Baratheon colors are black and yellow, but this suits you better. Besides, I know you’ll never really stop being a Stark. Maybe in the future, they’ll call you a Storm Queen. That would suit you.”

Arya still can’t muster up much excitement for fancy clothes, but Sansa’s words make her happy. 

It’s two weeks before the wedding when the worst storm Arya’s seen thus far begins. The first crack of thunder had woken them both early, and rather than go back to sleep, they’d decided just to pass the time by making love.

(Arya likes it most ways, but she thinks in the early morning is her favorite, with him pressed up behind her or her rolled onto her stomach and squished into the pillows. It somehow makes the rest of the world melt away)

It’s in one these quiet moments when Gendry asks her, 

“There’s never been anyone else for you?”

Arya rolls over to face him. She runs a finger over the stubble he shaves closer now. 

“You wait this long to get revenge on me for asking?”

Gendry’s eyes are still half-closed, and he’s playing with her hair. 

“Like you said to me, you never really talk about what happened after we separated, faceless assassin shit aside. Besides, I want to know how you were so...fearless the first time. I was a complete mess.”

Arya flops onto her back and looks up at his earnest face. 

“I wasn’t scared because it was you. I don’t think I could ever be scared of you. When I met you, I was disgusted by the thought of romance, it was never something I thought I would ever want. But despite this, I’ve been half in love with you since I was twelve.”

Gendry makes a face, and Arya can’t figure out if her admission surprises him or not. She thinks back to what he’d admitted to her in the Godswood that first week she’d returned.

“I felt it...like this, even back then. I didn’t know what it was, or what to do about it, but I felt it.”

She remembers watching him in the forge at Harrenhal, remembers being confused by the warm fluttering feelings it evoked. Remembers doing her best to ignore them until one night it had gotten to be too much and she’d shoved her hand down the front of her breeches like she’s seen other boys do by the side of the road, until she finally made it subside.

“Even if I could name it then, it’s not like I could have gotten you to do anything about it.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t have.”

Arya scoffs at the righteousness in his voice. 

“So I guess it’s a good thing I figured out how to touch myself early on.”

She feels her ears go pink at the admission, and giggles to herself when she sees Gendry’s do the same. She’s still not sure if this is something other women ever talk about, or even do.

“Pretty much anytime I could get a few minutes alone, I would slide my hand down my smallclothes and try and figure out how things worked. Found that little nub that makes things seem to explode, figured out I could get two fingers in pretty easily, that I actually like it slow better, that it makes me come harder- and that I rarely had enough time to myself to do it properly like that.”

Arya bites her lip before continuing. 

“I don’t think it was a bad way to learn. And a lot of it was trial and error. I even stuck a finger up my arse once trying to figure out what all the fuss was about that.”

Gendry’s now turned red as a beet and can’t seem to get words out. 

“I can’t say I get it. It was really hard to get in until I wet it with my cunt, and once I got it inside it didn’t feel like much. It was like sticking a finger in your ear or up your nose.”

Gendry’s embarrassment has now turned to deep chuckles, that he’s rolled over and is trying to muffle them in the pillow. Good, Arya likes it better this way. 

“I learned some things in the brothels in Braavos too, but I’m glad I don’t have to spend days in and out of them anymore. Between learning the truly bizarre shit some people are apparently into- I’ve seen a man pay to have a woman get him off using only her feet, and another who paid a woman to piss on his face-”

Gendry’s expression mirrors her own opinions. 

“But I also saw what a damn mummer’s show most of that profession is. Nearly everything they say to you is an act.”

Gendry nods, and Arya pulls one of his arms over her. 

“I agree on that point. I don’t think I can imagine being with a whore again- spent too long at that one in the Crownlands, seen too many of the girls off duty- watched the masks come off as it were. I’d feel like I was paying to be lied to. I’ve seen the foot thing too-”

“Why is that so common?” Arya muses. She’s quiet for a minute before continuing. 

“It was in Braavos that men started looking at me. And not just creepy men staring at little girls, but normal ones. And I would look back, and think ‘oh that one has pretty eyes’ or ‘that one has nice arms’...but the thought of actually doing anything with them myself...was foreign. It was the same with some of the things in the brothels- fun to watch, but I couldn’t imagine doing any of it. “

Arya pauses, suddenly thoughtful. 

“I’m not sure if I’ve always been like that, or if it was because of...having to learn to be No One. But either way, I thought I’d end up like my uncle the Blackfish.”

Gendry’s face is earnest. He’s still flat on the bed, only his face turned to her, so he reaches out and tugs her beside him .

“Doesn’t sound so bad. At least you’re not likely to be drawn astray by a random burst of lust that convinces you to do something stupid.”

Arya lets him pull her back towards him. At least he’s looking on the bright side, even if he’s doing it by being self deprecating. 

“Then I came back to Winterfell, and found you again, and it was like...like I roared back to life inside. All those things I thought I would never want to do with anyone, I suddenly wanted to do with you, really badly.”

Arya takes one of his hands and runs a trail of kisses up his wrist. 

“Best I can figure, I’m not the kind of person who would want to lay with someone unless I already like them, and trust them. And outside of my family, I can count the number of people I genuinely trust on the fingers of one hand. Maybe even on Davos’s hand.”

Gendry pulls back on his arm, and drags her along with it. He kisses her once, sweetly. 

“I love you. And even after what happened between us at Winterfell, and you leaving, I trust you too.”

Arya can’t keep her smile down. 

“I love you too.”

Arya deepens the kiss with a smile, and they’re well on to round two of the morning when suddenly they begin to hear the sounds of servants coming up and down the hallways and the light from the windows lightens a bit, despite the pouring rain. 

“Damn, is it really morning already?” Arya complains.

Gendry groans. 

“Time for another day of dealing with other people’s problems and planning for a ceremony we’d really rather skip out on.”

“This is the life we lead,” Arya agrees.

As the day before the wedding loom, Arya begins to feel sick to her stomach. It upsets her. She’s not nervous, really she’s not. She is entirely content with her decisions, but still the nausea remains.

The day before the wedding, the sky clears a bit, so Arya tells the steward that she’s going to cut her work on the ledgers short and head to the Godswood for a swim. The man is taken aback. 

“My lady, it’s the middle of winter!”

Arya looked at him like he’d grown a second head. 

“You do remember that I am from the north right?”

Under the overcast sky, Arya quietly stripped off her breeches and tunic and climbed into the water. She vaguely noticed that the ties on her stays seemed looser than usual. The only real reason she even worse something like that was to keep her breasts in place while sparring, and the laces weren’t tied tightly so they shouldn’t have stretched, even though she tied them in front. Once in the water, she lifts a hand to examine each of her tits. They really had been a bit sensitive lately…

Oh. 

Well, it’s not like it was the worst of timing. But it was still something to add to the pile of stuff to consider. 

That evening, at supper, Arya looks around and smiles, seeing all these people she actually likes under her roof. 

Daron and Tim are sitting with the other men from the armory. Arya notes they’re even holding hands under the table. Jas has come in from the village, and he’s sitting at the same table, no doubt backing up the utterly ridiculous stories the other two have come up with. 

Brienne sits at one of the guest tables, with an older man Arya guesses must be her father. She looks, if not happy, then peaceful.

Ser Davos is sitting at their own table, his wife by his side. It feels like they’ve known him for years and yet this is the first time they’ve met Marya and that feels so so wrong somehow, and now they can begin to remedy it. 

It’s not Winterfell, Arya thinks, but it’s on its way to becoming home. 

The next morning, the ceremony is a blur. It’s not raining, but it’s about to rain again, so they can use the Godswood and not rush back inside. All Arya can see is the blue of Gendry’s eyes, and she can barely get her words out. 

But then the words are said, and they kiss and people cheer, and Arya realizes she’s actually married.

The feast is small, and Arya sings the praises of the fish stew Merope has cooked up - made with actual cream now that it won’t go rancid in a day or less on the rocking sea - and it begins raining again quickly, but Arya thinks it’s wonderful. 

Once the lutes and the pipes come out, Arya nudges Gendry and asks, 

“Can we slip away for a bit?”

“Don’t worry, I warned everyone there would be no bedding, if there were even men in the village brave enough to try ripping your clothes off-”

Arya grins. 

“Not that, I just wanted to talk to you for a little while.”

His eyes flicker, and he tilts his head in the general direction of one of the corridors off to the side of the Round Hall.

“I’ve been wanting to show you this for a few days anyway, just haven’t had a chance,” Gendry tells her, keeping his voice down. She’s not sure why, if anyone catches them, they’re just going to assume they’re sneaking off to fuck. Which they are, but maybe not first. 

He leads her down to one of the cellars, and points out a door she didn’t see right away. He’s taken a torch.

“I’m not sure if this is an actual secret passageway like those ones that everyone said were below the Red Keep-”

“Those were real,” Arya assures him, “That’s how I escaped before.”

“But I got a lock to put on the door just in case. No one will be able to come down here but us.”

The passageway is a narrow series of steps that turns entirely to stone. There’s a light at the end of the passage, but Arya’s glad for the torch stil. 

When the light comes close, she gasps. The passage opens into a small cave, that must be on the side of the sheer cliff that sits below Storm’s End. There’s a blanket on the ground, and Arya scrambles to sit on it and get a look over the edge into the sea. 

She picks at the blanket. 

“Did you bring this out here earlier?”

Gendry nods, sitting beside her. 

“Thought it would be a good idea for us both to have places in case we need a break from everything. ‘

Arya sticks out her feet and slides off her slippers so she can feel the air on her bare feet. The rain is coming down in buckets and the cool mist feels lovely. 

She turns her head and glances over her shoulder in a way that she hopes comes off as coy. 

“Aren’t you going to ravish your new wife?”

Gendry’s face is joyful. 

“I think I can manage.”

When they’re done, Arya’s sitting on his lap on the blanket, looking out the cave. Gendry’s bottom lip is swollen from her enthusiastic biting and she’s pretty sure her arse and tits are both dotted with pinch bruises, and they’ve both got serious cases of bedhead, but dammit, they’re married. And happy. 

Gendry plants a kiss on her neck before asking, 

“What was it you wanted to tell me?”

She’d actually nearly forgotten. 

“Oh, I think I’m pregnant.”

He freezes. 

“What?”

“Not sure yet of course,” she says, snuggling into his lap, “But I’ve been sick the last few weeks and my tits are bigger than they used to be.”

Gendry’s still. 

“That might explain-”

She leans her head up to look at him. 

“The last couple times I licked your cunt, it tasted different. Not bad,” he assures her quickly, “But different. I wasn’t sure if that was something that happened normally, so I didn’t say anything.”

Arya frowns. 

“I’m actually not sure if that’s normal. I’ll have to ask the maester when I get him to check things.”

She looks down at her midsection. Despite frequent examination she can’t see more than a slight curve there. 

“A child…” she murmurs, voice trailing off. 

“Please tell me you find this as terrifying as I do.”

Arya nods. Good, she’s not alone. 

“I can give you one thing to look forward to,” she tells him. 

She turns around and pins his hips with her knees. She leans up to whisper in his ear. 

“I’ve always heard that pregnant women are utterly insatiable in bed.”

Gendry barks with laughter, wrapping her in his arms as she sinks down on his cock. 

“You’re already insatiable.”

Good, Arya thinks, as she pays a half mind to the storm still coming down outside the cave. If she is the storm, she must never cease seeking harbor.


	3. Chapter 3

Carrying the twins is actually easier than Arya ever expected.

Sure, she has to adjust to her size, but that was doable. Renly had owned a great many clothes that Arya can pick through to find ones that will accommodate her expanding gut, though most of them are awfully gaudy. 

She’s trying on and tying a tunic of black silk embroidered with leaves and vines one morning. Most of these garments are just sitting around, gathering moths. She should really find someone who can take them apart and sew them into more serviceable garments. She cringes and tosses the silk tunic aside, trading it for a slightly less garish one of green wool edged in gold. Gendry peeks up from the bed and tells her, 

“You should just wear that as a dress.”

Arya stares at him bewildered. The tunic is quite long, nearly to her knees, and blessedly loose around her middle, but still. 

“And just go around with my naked legs sticking out like a heron?”

“I like your legs, and I don’t get to see them enough.”

Arya rolls her eyes, and pulls out the hose that were hanging with the tunic. She cringes, realizing that they’re the two piece kind that are supposed to be held together with a codpiece. 

“I didn’t know men still wore these.”

Gendry glances over at them.

“Can’t imagine they were ever popular up North, too cold. My uncle was apparently very much into keeping up with fashion though.”

Arya tosses them aside. 

“Can’t do those, I’m not giving everyone at the training yard a free show.”

Afterwards, she finds a pair of lambskin breeches that slide on easily and tie very low on her waist. She’ll have to roll them up though, and she’s sure she looks ridiculous.

“You could just have something made for you, it would probably end up being much more comfortable” Gendry interjects.

Arya sits on the end of the bed to pull on her boots, which takes far longer than it used to.

“I know. I just hate the idea of all that work going into making things I’m only going to wear while I’m still enormous.”

In fact, Maester Elric had seemed mildly concerned about her size at first. And then, after interrogating her on her recent eating habits, told her he suspected that she was carrying twins. 

Twins, as if the possibility of one child wasn’t daunting enough. 

“It’s strange,” Arya had admitted once, “I love children, I always have. I rejected the idea of being someone’s broodmare, but I always thought I’d be the fun auntie for Jon and Sansa’s children. I thought Sansa’s especially would need it.”

She makes a face, thinking back to what she knew of other highborn children. Some she had met seemed to hardly spend any time with their parents at all. While Joffrey had cried to his mother over everything, she didn’t think she recalled King Robert spending any time at all with any of his children. 

“I don’t want a wet nurse,” she tells Gendry when she’s seven moons along. “I don’t want to get used to the idea of foisting my children off on someone else, especially for something so...personal.”

Gendry glances up from his papers. They’re going through the ledgers together. They’ve taken to doing that with most of their duties. This was something that normally fell to the Lady of the keep. Arya accompanies him in petitions, and they both manage the servants and the household stores. Helping each other out aside, it means that if Gendry retreats into his grouchy, sullen self at an offhand comment, or if Arya’s temper got the best of her when someone questions her ability, one could take the reins and let the other go hide and lick their wounds. 

And on the rare occasion someone riled both of them up, they were a force to be reckoned with. Ours is the fury indeed.

“If you’re sure,” Gendry tells her, “I mean, I never heard of any woman in Flea Bottom having one, and they get on well enough.”

“Merope tells me there’s a girl in the kitchens, Mollie, whose due a moon before me. I’ll talk to her, just in case of emergency...but I think we can do this.”

It will be a challenge. Aside from the official duties of her title, Arya has taken on much of the role of the Master-at-arms. 

The previous one had been killed during Stannis’s siege years ago, and much of the job had been taken on by the captain of the guard, who seemed more than glad for the occasional relief. A couple of the guards had objected to taking direction from a woman. A raised eyebrow and a question if they had heard of the exploits of Arya Stark, bringer of the dawn, had mostly pushed those down. 

And for those who didn’t, a firm rap from her quarterstaff had changed plenty. She really doesn’t use the staff enough.

She keeps with the actual sparring as long as her body allows her to. And once she can’t, she still walks the training yard, observing, offering advice. 

Even the physical symptoms don’t bother her as much as she thought. The heartburn’s pretty bad, but nothing like Merope had warned. Having to visit the privy constantly is a pain, but she’s in a proper castle now, where that’s never far away. And Maester Elric’s teas keep the worst of the intestinal symptoms at bay. 

Sometimes she worries that she’s become numb to physical discomfort. That she’s become so used to it that she won’t recognize if she’s truly hurt.

Somehow, the one that bothers her most is the swelling of her feet, especially when she gets large enough she can’t do anything about it herself. 

Gendry insists that he doesn’t mind rubbing her feet before bed. 

“I’ve told you, I like making you feel good.”

Arya pouts. 

“That’s the same excuse you used the other night when you let me hump your leg while you were still asleep because you were too tired to do anything else, and I can’t reach my own cunt anymore.”

Arya had been right that her pregnancy had made her libido go into overdrive. She hadn’t thought it was possible for her to want him anymore than she already did, but she had apparently been wrong. And while Gendry had enjoyed the change greatly, sometime this life they had built just took too much out of him. 

Arya keens when Gendry digs his thumbs into her arches. 

“I don’t like being dependent on other people,” she admits, “I spent too long not trusting anyone but myself, and now I’m going to have two tiny humans completely dependent on me. I don’t even know what to name them.”

Gendry blinks like it’s the first time the thought had occurred to him. 

“Shit,” is his reaction, “And we have to pick two instead of one.”

He thinks for a few moments, and then wrinkles his nose. 

“If either one’s a boy, we’re not naming him Robert.”

“Agreed,” Arya’s silent for a bit, before continuing. “I used to think I would name my firstborn after my father. I can’t. I don’t want to name them after any of my loved ones who have died. You see the way some of the older people here look at us…”

“Like we’re them reincarnated,” Gendry says bitterly. He hates being compared to Robert, just as Arya is uncomfortable being compared to an aunt she never met. 

“I don’t want my children’s lives cast in the shadows of ghosts.”

They won’t be. Even names aside, the people of Storm’s End didn’t know them as children, they won’t build their children up on the expectations of the memories of parents. 

Gendry drops her feet, and pulls her into his arms. He kisses her slowly but thoroughly, caressing her cheek with his thumb. His other hand finds the waistband of her breeches.

“Is this a bad time to admit I’m so hard I could cut diamonds?”

Arya laughs, 

“At least you’re awake this time. “

He pats her on the arse.

“Roll over,” he tells her, voice deep and husky. She does as told. 

She feels him pulls her breeches down as she unties and struggles to pull her tunic over her head. She expects to feel him enter her, instead her back goes cold and a few seconds his hand pushes her thigh up and his tongue probes at her from behind. 

“Gotta make sure you’re wet,” he whispers lustily, before returning to his licks. Arya sighs and groans, and grasps at the sheets, pushing back against his face. He drives her closer, so close, before pulling his mouth away. 

“You’re mean,” she says petulantly. His kisses one arsecheek in apology. He then returns to his previous position, wrapping one arm over hers and pushes in with one firm stroke. 

This is pretty much the last position they can do this in. Arya’s sore breasts quickly made her not want to be on top anymore, the shaking making it worse. Then her abdomen began to hang loosely and it made her so uncomfortable that she no longer enjoyed being on her hands and knees. Eventually, Gendry wouldn’t even get on top of her for fear of hurting the babes. Fucking her husband had become nearly as difficult as finding a comfortable position to sleep in.

As she grinds back on his cock to match his every thrust, his hand groping for her nub blindly, she muses that at least it’s a good one to save for last. 

She grunts and cries out when she comes. Gendry leans over and softly bites her shoulder as he thrusts hard and spills inside her. 

“Can’t wait til I can see your face when you do that again.”

Arya’s still in a daze, but opens one eye. 

“I could drag over the looking glass.”

She’s not got quite a moon left when Davos and Marya arrive for a visit. 

Arya is delighted when Davos presents them with his gift to the babes, a carved wooden cradle. 

The gifts have started coming slowly. Most of the houses were waiting until the actual birth to send their congratulations, fearing stillbirth or childbed fever. Arya understands, but hates the ideas that want to take root in her mind of what could happen. 

Selwyn Tarth had sent a young foal, now in the castle stables. He had sent a note saying, 

“If you’re child is anything like mine, this may be the only plaything they need for many years. And if, Gods forbid, the worst comes to pass, I’m sure the lady of the house could find it in her heart to make a place for the beast.”

One day out of the blue, Daron and Tim had presented her with a thing made out of fishnets, that they insisted was a baby carrier. 

“Since they think you’re having two, there’s a spot to stick one on your back too,” Daron had insisted, lifting the net over her head and showing her. 

She will definitely be testing that with melons before putting a child in it. 

The cradle is beautiful, made of dark wood, and still rocks smoothly, though it’s clearly been used for many years. 

“I’m no craftsman, my lady, but I’ve always been good with my hands, and this served our sons quite well.”

She barely has time to ask if it will fit two when Davos asks where Gendry’s ran off to instead of greeting guests.

“The forge most likely. That’s where he goes when he’s upset or someone pisses him off or he just needs to lose himself. He’s been in there a lot lately because he’s scared but doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t like being bothered when he does, but I don’t think he’ll mind if it’s you.”

Davos has barely left when Marya begins fussing over her, 

“I can’t believe you’re still up and moving around as close as you are. With Dale I was in bed nearly an entire moon before.”

Arya flushes red. Maester Elric’s been giving her hell for not wanting to go on bed rest, but she doesn’t feel like she needs to stop. Slow down maybe, but not stop.

“Oh you know, another day. One day it’s achy joints, the next my tits are leaking.”

“If you want comfort, the first one is the hardest.”

“I can’t even think of any others right now.”

Marya holds onto her shoulders, fondly. Like a mother. Arya suddenly feels tears prick at her eyes and wonders what her own mother would think of what she has become.

“I brought you some blankets and baby clothes as well,” she studies Arya before continuing. “You tell me Gendry’s frightened. Are you?”

Frightened? Arya thinks. She knows fear, she’s stared it in the face. She knows fear, intimately. 

“Not really. Nervous? Maybe, anxious? Without a doubt.”

She reaches down and runs her hands over her stomach so she can feel the kicks. It’s been a chore keeping other people’s hands away. These are for her alone. 

“Mostly? I really want to meet them.”

Marya pulls her in to kiss her on the head. 

“I think you’ll do just fine then. I’m glad Gendry has someone like you. Davos used to write to me that he was scared the boy would never adjust to his new status. He would bristle at the tiniest of insults and sulk at the smallest mistake he made. He needs someone like you.”

Arya feels a smile quirk at the corners of her mouth.

“We’re good for each other,” she says, “We each want to beat up the other’s insecurities.”

Davos and Marya leave in a few days, saying they were called to King’s Landing before they could return home. After they bid their farewells, Arya tells Gendry, 

“Bran wrote me a letter. He says he wants to give Dragonstone to House Seaworth. They both know the land, Davos has more than proved himself worthy and they already have multiple heirs.”

“I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more,” Gendry muses, “I’d have probably cocked this whole lord thing up if Davos hadn’t been here to help me.”

He’s helped them both, Arya thinks. 

A few weeks later, she gathers a handful of Renly’s old clothes to take to Mollie. Her son, Tris, had been born three weeks before. The girl had nearly panicked when she’d gone into labor and realized that it would be some time until she could go back to the kitchen. Arya had promised to find work for her that she could do sitting down. 

“I’ve tried to take a bunch of these seams out, so we can use the fabric to make children’s clothes in a bunch of different sizes. I don’t know if they’re boys or girls yet, so you can make dresses or trousers if you like. If they’re girls, I’ll let them pick whichever ones they like,” Arya tells her in a whisper. 

She leans over the basket and gently taps Tris’s nose, softly. She knows better than to a wake a moon-old baby. 

“You should make him some too, there’s some really nice leather among that all.”

“Milady,” Mollie says, touching the fabrics, “These are far too fine for a child of mine.”

She had realized quickly upon talking to the other woman, that Mollie had no one and her child would be a Storm. She could have told her that some of Arya’s favorite boys had been born bastards, and that the only part of them that should be cursed was the men who left them. But she knew it likely wouldn’t make a difference, and she hoped that this might prove to her that Mollie’s son would be treated no differently by the Lord and Lady of this house. 

“They’re far too fine to be sitting in a wardrobe attracting moths too. Neither me nor Lord Baratheon are going to be wearing anything like this. I’m sure Renly wouldn’t want them to go to waste, and I’m too shit with a needle and thread. If I were in your position, my children would probably be running around naked until they could sew their own.”

She fingers the golden lace stitched onto the edges of a red velvet doublet. 

“Feel free to tear off any of this frippery though. They’re going to be worn by children after all.”

Mollie finally accepts, and when Arya stands, she feels a cramp and stumbles a bit. 

“You okay milady? Mollie asks, looking after her.”

“I’m fine,” she tells her. “If anyone asks, I’m heading to the Godswood.”

She’s been spending more and more time out here as of late, when she needed to get away and collect her thoughts. It was her place, the way Gendry’s was the castle forge. When her skin began to feel stretched and heavy, she would come out here, strip and go for a swim. 

This is what she does today, pleased that even though it’s a bit cold, the sky is still only gray and not pouring, yet anyway. She feels another cramp, and winces, before feeling the water take her weight and lets herself relax and try to let it out. 

The cramps keep coming and going, and Arya is annoyed;. They’re like the ones that came with her moons blood, but are much sharper. When she starts to go wrinkly, another one hits her. 

She dresses and gets up to leave, and another hits, this one stronger, so much so that she stumbles. 

Alright, maybe she SHOULD go see Maester Elric before supper. 

The maester of Storm’s End is younger than any Arya’s met previously, his formerly golden hair only streaked with gray, worn tied back at his neck. He’s also a bit more sharp tongued than she’s used to, but she prefers that. 

When she tells him about the cramps, he places a hand on her stomach, and asks. 

“Is the pain constant? Any bleeding?”

“No,” Arya replies, “It comes and goes, but they’ve been happening more-”

Another one hits, and she grimaces and draws herself in. That was the worst one yet. She almost forgot she had legs for a minute. 

Elric sighs and rubs his forehead. 

“I would ask if you were paying attention to the dates I gave you, but you clearly haven’t.”

Arya sputters. 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“When was the last cramp before that?”

Arya thinks. 

“Twenty minutes or so ago, after I left the Godswood?”

“My lady,” he tells her, measured. “You’re in labor.”

“Oh,” she says weakly, Elric takes her arm and begins to lead her out of his workshop and towards the Lord’s chambers, “That makes sense. Can someone please fetch my husband?”

Arya’s heard a lot about childbirth, from women of all stations, along with perfunctory lessons from her septa growing up. Part of her feels like she’s prepared, but also knows she’s completely not. 

The contractions begun coming more frequently, by the time Gendry turns up. Arya hurts in ways that she’s not sure she even knew she could. Gendry holds her hand, even as she tells him some extremely unkind things. 

She groans and pants and cries out, but won’t scream. She’s been stabbed, had run through the streets bleeding and jumped into a canal and tried to swim. She had pulled out stitches multiple times. This may be an entirely different kind of hurt, but it’s going to end in something beautiful, so it’s not worth screaming over. This harbour will not submit to the storm. 

After a seeming lifetime, Elric announces that he can see a head, and a minute later, Arya hears a cry. 

Elric cleans off the babe, wraps her in a blanket and hands her to Arya. She’s beaming and her heart sings, even as she hears Elric go “that’s one down.”

The second comes a few minutes later, with one strong push ending in a sharper pain. Elric cleans and hands Arya that one as well. 

He’s clamping and cutting the cords when he feels the need to say, 

“I’d watch out for that one, she tore you on the way out. It’s not bad though, barely a nick, it won’t even need a stitch.”

Arya’s cuddling the both of them, marveling at the tiny noses and ears and their little tufts of black hair, so she only vaguely notes Gendry going pale as a ghost and going “That can happen?” There’s so many things going on downstairs, she’s not sure she would even notice a big tear. 

Then he says something about “afterbirth”, and Arya chooses not to think too much about what that means. She’s only got eyes for the girls in her arms, and ignores the odd, squishy feeling that follows, Elric’s hands massaging her abdomen, and whatever it is he’s throwing in the washbasin with the soiled towels and he’s talking about burying.

Gendry’s climbed onto the bed beside her, when Arya’s pulled down the neck of her tunic and Elric’s showing her how to get the babies to latch. It’s a bizarre feeling, but the two of them seem to know what to do, so it’s not bad. Elric nods, and tells them he’ll check in on them all again in a bit. 

He pats Arya on the shoulder. 

“For all the knowledge they guard at the Citadel, they cannot make life. Only women can do that. I think this is my favorite part of the job.”

And then he leaves them be. 

Arya’s exhausted, so when the children stop suckling and yawn, she gives in to Gendry’s grabby hands and lets him take one. 

“Have you thought anymore about names? Because I have nothing.”

Arya looks down at the little dark haired creature in her arms. 

“My grandmother was Lyarra...how about Lyra?”

Gendry nods, 

“That’s a good one. But we need one more.”

Arya bites her lip in thought. 

“What about Lysa?” She pronounces it with a long ‘i’, “leesa’. 

Gendry makes a face. 

“Didn’t you have a mad aunt named Lysa?”

“I didn’t know her. I only have Sansa to go on that she was mad. And besides, her name was pronounced “Lie-sa”. I was thinking like Lys, the free city.”

Lyra’s already back asleep on Arya, but Lysa’s wiggling her little arms at her father above her. Arya’s reaches out to tap her nose. 

“I always wanted to see Lys, I wanted to see all the free cities. I loved Braavos, loved the sea and the canals. Loved the smell and the fresh seafood and the boats and all the different people going about their lives in such a bustling place. It was like what King’s Landing could have been, if it didn’t stink so much.”

She pauses a bit, the darkness getting back into her eyes. 

“Though I loved Braavos a lot more before I learned a blind girl could get beaten regularly in the streets and no one would do a single thing. I should have known better than to expect that people were better anywhere else.”

Gendry leans over to kiss her on the forehead, to help her chase the darkness away. 

“Lyra and Lysa work for me.”

Arya eyes her still awake daughter. Her eyes aren’t quite as blue as her father’s, there are flecks of gray in them, like her own. Storm eyes, Arya thinks to herself. 

“We could go see Lys someday,” Gendry tells her, “I’ve never seen any of Essos. Someday, we could go. All of us maybe even.”

Arya smiles as she feels her exhaustion threaten to take her. Maybe they would. 

Gendry and Maester Elric both have to practically yell the next day when she wakes and tries to get out of bed immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied, this needs four chapters to fit everything I want. At least.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day y'all!
> 
> I cribbed some notes on the geography of the Stormlands from the Fury (which is somehow still not the top rated fic in the Gendry/Arya tag even though it deserves it).

When the girls are four and a half years old, Sansa manages to find the time to take a ship from White Harbour for a visit. 

Ely, the girls’ nurse, looks confused. 

“If your sister’s Queen in the North, why do you live all the way down here? Should I do my hair fancy or something?”

Arya shakes her head. Ely’s sixteen year old with crinkly red hair and a face full of freckles. She doesn’t generally go for fancy, which is good when your job is keeping track of a pair of very active children.

“If she makes a single comment about your hair, I’ll pull hers.”

Not that she really plans on being childish to Sansa. She has missed her terribly. Her letters have been a bit cryptic, and part of Arya is anxious to see her sister’s reaction to her current life. 

“Just try and make sure the girls are clean, and please try and stop them from pinching each other too much.”

Ely nods, and Arya leaves, knowing the twins are in capable hands. Ely has six siblings and can wrangle even the fastest toddler. 

She then goes to retrieve Gendry from their solar. He’s at the table with his head in his hands. 

Arya reaches out and tugs him by them. 

“Come on, it’s time. They announced the arrival at the gate five minutes ago.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

Ely meets them in the courtyard, dragging a child by each hand. Lyra and Lysa are both in neat dresses, their hair tied in ribbons. Lysa fidgets, while Lyra quietly drops Ely’s hand to cling to her father’s. 

The ride from Weeping Town isn’t very long, and by the time the riders enter, Sansa is still immaculate upon her mount. 

She looks diminished, without her northern furs, but no less regal than Arya remembers. Her gown is a deep gray damask, the bodice with an overlay of black lace, making her complexion look even paler. 

Gendry had reluctantly put on his best leathers and a doublet of dark blue. It lets him maintain some dignity, even if he must look his station.

Arya had asked the seamstress in Weeping Town who had made her wedding clothes to make her a few similar ones out of linen or wool. They’re easier to care for, but beautifully embroidered, and excellent for when Arya wants to impress someone, or needs to make an impression.

Lysa’s still fidgeting, so Arya grabs her and hoists her up into her arms as the Queen in the North dismounts her horse and is welcomed 

With a squirming child in her arms, Arya manages a curtsy even worse than the ones from her childhood.

“Your grace,” she greets her, with a heavy note of sarcasm in her voice. 

A smile bursts onto Sansa’s face, and Arya finds herself filling up with glee.

Lyra looks up from where she holds her father’s hand and asks, in her quiet, even voice. 

“Are you really a queen?”

Lysa pauses her squirming to add,

“If you’re a queen, where’s your crown?”

That makes Sansa smile. 

“I am indeed, I am queen of all of the North. And I left my crown at home, I thought it might fall off when I was on the boat.”

Lysa looks disappointed, but stays quiet, so Arya gestures over her shoulder. 

“Come on, it’s dinner time anyway.”

Dinner is fancier than Arya would have liked, but Merope insisted that she wouldn’t have a queen going back home speaking modestly of her cooking. 

Sansa watches quietly as Lysa and Lyra get up and look expectantly at their mother.

“Go ahead, but stay in the yard,” Arya tells them, and they vacate the Round Hall. 

She hears Sansa quietly ask Gendry, “How do you tell them apart?”

Gendry nods at the bits of twine they wear tied as bracelets around their wrists. 

“Lyra wears hers on her right arm, Lysa on her left. You can remember because Lyra has an ‘r’ in it.”

“And after knowing them a little while, you don’t really need it,” Arya adds. 

After the meal is done, Sansa asks her to see her to the Godswood. 

They pass Lysa and Lyra playing at swords with wooden sticks. Tris sits off to one side, and Arya suddenly hears him say, 

“Why do I have to be the princess?”

“Cause you have the prettiest hair.”

“I wanna be the dragon.’

Arya snorts. Tris does have very pretty hair, thick and blonde and curly. And even though they’re not a month apart, both girls are taller than him already.

They’ve just passed into the Godswood when Sansa suddenly says, 

“Seeing them before, I could have sworn it was me and you.”

Arya smiles and laughs. 

“They do fight like cats and dogs. But that aside, they’re not really much like us at all.”

They’ve reached the pool, and Arya gestures for Sansa to sit down next to her. It’s sunny somehow, even this late in the day, and it’s like the rare quiet afternoons when they were young. 

She tells Sansa about how Lysa spoke first of the twins, and how after, it seemed like Lyra was mostly content with letting her sister do the talking. How Lysa announced to all of them a few weeks ago that she planned to run away and become a mummer. 

“And Lyra seems quiet, but that’s not always accurate. A few moons ago one of the guard’s sons called Tris a dirty bastard. Lyra lashed out and grabbed him by the arm and squeezed, and wouldn’t let him go until he said he was sorry. I saw the boy after, she left bruises on him.”

That was definitely one of the signs that Lyra was closer to following after her father rather than Arya, no matter what Gendry said.

Sansa’s looking at her funny,

“What?”

“You’re happy.”

Arya feels a noise escape her throat. Hearing it put so simply is strange, foreign. 

“I am, truly.”

Sansa looks away and tilts her face up towards the sun. 

“I wonder what Mother and Father would think. That after all these years...that I would be the sole ruler of Winterfell, running an independent North, and you would be happily married with children.”

“We each got what the other wanted.”

They both chuckle, because they know it’s only superficially true. 

“I didn’t know what to think...you left so suddenly before, and then three years later I get a letter that you’re marrying a man that I thought you barely knew.”

Arya smiles. Explaining everything in letters had been a daunting task. Explaining that she’d chosen to come back to Westeros. Explaining that she was marrying, that she was marrying the same man she’d taken to bed before the Long Night. Explaining that she had, in fact, known him for years. 

“Everyday’s different,” Arya muses, “But I adjust. I come and go, like the tides.”

She pauses before her next words, 

“What about you Sansa, are you happy?”

Sansa chuckles, 

“I wonder if anyone has ever asked a queen that question before...my home is safe, my people are safe. I know where everyone left in my family is, and that they are alive. That’s more than I could have hoped for for most of my girlhood. Of course...there’s still the question of the future.”

She takes a glance at Arya, and she feels it cut like it often did when the two were children.

“I suppose it isn’t the best time to bring up the question of succession.”

Arya sticks up her nose at the question. No it is not the right time. As much as it pleased her that thanks to one of Bran’s rulings, she no longer had to pay heed to anyone giving them condolences and asking when they were trying again for a boy.

“I don’t even remember which one came out first. I can’t answer questions about which one will inherit before they can even write their names.”

It’s also unspoken that neither her nor Gendry will be mentioning the word betrothal until they’re old enough to say if they want it for themselves.

“Why are you heading to King’s Landing so early? The next small council meeting isn’t until early next year?”

She has been wondering. Gendry and her have to make the journey too, but they had been planning to take this long go round of the Stormlands proper for a while, and Sansa showing up right before they’re set to leave seemed fortuitous. 

Sansa sighs, 

“I spend so much time wondering about Bran. About how he even ended up where he is...and I just wish I could be there for him more.”

Arya suddenly wonders if Bran has confided in Sansa half of what he has in her. She did have the dream where he was a porpoise after all, as bizarre as it had been. 

“I’m sure it will be good for him to see you again,” she assures Sansa. She then stands. 

“I best be getting off to bed.”

“I think I’ll stay out here for a while.”

Arya nods, 

“You can get to the guest rooms alright?”

Sansa nods in understanding, and Arya leaves the Godswood. 

She bumps into Ely on her way back to her chambers. 

“Both girls are in bed milady, if not asleep. Too excited.”

Arya nods, she’ll check in on them in a minute.

“Are you Ely? Excited?”

The younger girl nods. 

“I’ve never been more than a mile or two from Weeping Town before! It will be like going on an adventure.”

They really lucked out finding her, Arya, thinks, as she creeps quiet as a mouse to peek in on her daughters. 

It had surprised her and Gendry when they had offered to get them seperate beds, that they hadn’t wanted them. Arya remembers hating sharing a bed with Sansa when they were small, and had thought Lyra and Lysa would be the same.

But no matter how they were at each other’s throats throughout the day, at night they would curl up together in their little bed. Right now they were both on their bellies, Lyra’s arm slung over Lysa’s head and Lysa tucked into her side. 

Though Arya suspects they’re just pretending to be asleep, she shuts their door and leaves. 

Gendry’s already stretched out on the bed when she comes in and begins changing for bed. 

“Everyone ready to go in the morning?”

Arya nods, 

“Why exactly are we going towards Bronzegate first? Tarth is closer.”

Arya laughs at the petulance in his tone. 

“Because we like Tarth, it will make getting through all the other houses and keeps easier if we get to go there at the end.”

Gendry rolls back the covers to let her slip in. When she’s settled, he leans over and starts planting kisses on her chin. 

When his hands make for the ties at the top of her small clothes, she hates having to stop him. 

“Moon’s blood remember? Day or two left.”

Gendry actually pouts. 

“Never thought you of all people would be squeamish about that.”

“I’m not squeamish,” That’s putting it mildly, the first time she’d gotten her moon’s blood after the twins were born, she’d dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night, gone to the Godswood, gone on all fours and told him to make her howl at the moon.

“I just don’t want to make a mess someone else has to clean up. And Sansa’s still in the Godswood.”

When she notes his lip is still stuck out, so she lets her hands drift downward. 

“Want me to take care of you?”

Gendry pushes her hand away and starts working at his own laces. 

“S’okay, I can do it. I’ll pay you back on the road. All those bushes and caves and little groups of trees…”

“All there to district Lysa and Lyra from their unknowing quest to remain only children.”

Gendry laughs as he takes his cock in hand. Arya curls up under his other arm, nose pressed in his neck, inhaling the hint of smoke still on his skin. She likes watching him do this, especially when she can turn her head and try and see what he sees. She loves stroking his hair and sucking his ear lobe and running her fingers over the taut muscles in his chest and stomach as he works himself over. 

He comes in a spurt across his stomach and Arya retrieves a rag from the basin to wipe him off. 

“Try and focus on this,” she tells him, “Instead of the days and days of horse riding and listening to old lords talk about themselves that are ahead of us.”

The next morning, both parties pack up their horses and take off down the road. Sansa’s group splits off and takes the Kingsroad on it’s way to King’s Landing. She stops to hug Arya at the fork in the road, and the twins wave and yell out behind her until the party is well out of the line of sight.

The foal that Selwyn had sent for the twins as a baby is now a squat, gray mare named Thistle. She moved at a placid pace regardless of whether she was unburdened, carrying one twin, two, or both and Ely, though both the twins did their best to be good enough on her back to not need Ely plunking herself behind them to make them behave.

Arya giggles to herself whenever she sees Gendry bouncing uncomfortably in his saddle. All the years, he still rides like a green boy. 

The first night they’re eating supper after setting up camp, Lysa comes up to the two of them and asks, 

“Why do we have to go to all these places?”

Arya smiles, and puts her piece of bread down in her mug of broth. She pulls Lysa into her lap. Both girls are tall for their age, but slender, and Lysa’s head nearly hits her mother’s chin. 

“All of the houses in this land are sworn to me and your father. They serve us, and we have to keep them safe. It’s our responsibility, and someday, it will be yours or your sister’s. So you have to know the land, know it’s people.”

Gendry lets her talk, nodding along with her answer. 

Her answer seems to satisfy Lysa, so Arya lets her mind wander. She spies out of the corner of her eye Lyra sneak up and offer Gendry a flower she picked, and she feels her heart twinge. 

It doesn’t take long to reach Bronzegate, seat of House Buckler. 

The castle rises out of a crag, somehow seeming much more imposing than Storm’s End. Both of the girls are struck dumb by it. Gendry just takes a look, sighs, and says, 

“I’d forgotten how big a pain it was to get up there.”

Bronzegate, and by extension, Lord Ralph Buckler, are exactly what Arya has come to expect from highborns. Gracious, proper, and exacting in their manners. 

And so ungodly boring. 

Lysa and Lyra are both in awe of the grandness of the keep. Storm’s End, after years of neglect, has been left rather modest by comparison. The two of them, and Ely, get to be led around and told the history of the whole keep. 

Whereas the Lord and Lady of all of the Stormlands get to be bored out of their skulls, sitting in too-soft chairs around a too-big table while the near elderly Lord Buckler goes on and on about the going-ons of all of his extended family members who still remain in the area of Bronzegate, who’s gotten married, who’s been knighted. And he’s got a lot of them. 

It’s no wonder that by the second day of these discussions, Arya begins slipping one foot out of her boot during and starts running her toes up one of Gendry’s legs. 

(“You.” he says, punctuating his sentence with a hard kiss, “Are a goddamn horrible tease.”

He’s got her pressed up against a column in an dark, empty hallway after they’ve been left to their own devices. He’s already got one hand down her breeches, and she’s not exactly seeing the downside.

“Oh don’t pretend like you were listening in the first place,” Arya replies, as she wiggles and tries to help him get her breeches unlaced.)

And so the next time, her hand wanders straight for his lap instead. 

It’s halfway through the third day that Gendry finally snaps, and tells Lord Buckler to ride through the village and show him exactly how the tax cuts that had been put in over five years ago were working out. 

After a moment, Lord Buckler nods, and calls for someone to have his horse saddled. Gendry ends up quite pleased by what he sees, farmers who can keep their homes in good upkeep, and a village where everyone seems to have an occupation.

“See?” Arya tells him later that night, “Sometimes it’s better to just get straight to the point.”

She speaks with confidence, but Arya leaves Bronzegate feeling like the same wild, out of place child that she spent most of her childhood as. 

The area on this side of the Stormlands doesn’t have much, just a lot of villages with big swaths of empty land between them. Low hills and sharp peaks, without even very many trees. The journey through this is uninteresting. 

“I thought it would be more like after we escaped Harranhal. Like freedom” Gendry admits one night, in their tent. 

“It was just us and Hot Pie then though, we didn’t have all these people or responsibilities. “

Namely, the two young girls sleeping spread out right next to their parents. The two of them are having a grand time on the journey. Every day there are trees to climb, caves to dig into, a new animal they’ve never seen, and endless stories from nearly all of the men, as the guards from Storm’s End came from all over the Stormlands. 

Even if it also came with the discovery that quiet, good natured Lyra was as voracious a climber as her uncle Bran had been as a child. Great, now both of them had the abilities to give their parents heart attacks. 

They reach the foothills of the red mountains, and with them, they pass the ruins of Summerhall. 

Even Lysa grows quiet, seeing the ruins of the huge, burned castle, with the wild trying it’s best to grow over the corpse. Arya hears Ely’s whispering voice telling the girls the story of the Tragedy at Summerhall, and feels her chest ache, the darkness sneaking in with the memories of Harrenhal. 

Arya swears she can smell it burning, seeing the ruins. She can smell the fire and the ash and the clouds of smoke and heard the screaming-

“We should do something with it,” Gendry says gruffly, “It’s no good to anyone sitting there empty, and letting the stories of ghosts grow around it won’t do any good either.”

Arya nods. He’s right. Sitting empty, it could provide shelter to an army attempting to march on them, or on the Reach, or even King’s Landing. He’s right, but as they ride away, the darkness does not entirely recede. 

They make it to Blackhaven, seat of House Dondarrion. Arya feels her mind perk up. Their relationship had been complicated, but both her and Gendry still held some respect for the late Lightning Lord. 

In comparison to some of the keeps they’ve seen, it’s quite small and modest, though the bottomless moat does make one contemplate their own mortality, and any bandits from the mountains would have a very difficult time making it. 

And while the current holders of the seat are not like Beric at all, they do at least seem to share in Gendry and Arya’s grief. Of course, this happens in the midst of another long, dull discussion of court gossip, over another stupidly fancy table. 

Also unfortunately, the cousin who is currently the heir of Blackhaven, is seemingly also fond of having a certain sort of female company in his keep. 

Arya isn’t jealous when she sees the woman with the rich, red gown and the carefully curled hair lean rather obviously over Gendry’s chair and whisper in his ear. She knows he’s just embarrassed, even before she sees his face turn bright red, but seven hells if it doesn’t annoy her. 

Later that night, she flops onto the obnoxiously fancy bed in Blackhaven’s guest chambers, turns to Gendry while he’s still undressing and asks, 

“You sure you’re never going to get bored of me and start going off with painted whores?”

There’s a note of surprise on his face when he looks at her, and a bit of hurt that Arya feels come at her heart. She’s fishing for his words of affection, of commitement, and she knows it, but sometimes she needs to make him talk. 

He doesn’t say a thing before laying down beside her on the bed and pulling her over onto his chest. 

“Surprised you couldn’t hear her, how loud she was whispering bout ‘I’ll do that thing your wife would never’...”

Arya snorts despite herself. 

“Wouldn’t be specific either would she?”

He pushes a bit of her hair out of her face. 

“Wanted to draw me in with whatever I answered that with. Want to know something I learned the first time I trudged around this whole damn place?”

“That you hate highborn twats who have never lifted a sword against an enemy, yet have a thousand of them?”

He pauses. He’s used close to those exact words before. 

“Yes. But also, most highborn men I’ve met? They don’t like their wives. Not to say exactly, that they never found them attractive, or even loved them. They don’t like them.”

Arya frowns. She’s never quite heard it put that way. 

“Like, even if I suffered some horribly disfiguring accident that left me with no cock...or hands, or lips...you’d still want me around right?”

Arya frowns even harder, 

“How did you manage that one?”

Gendry rolls his eyes, 

“Just imagine it OK?”

She stops and thinks. She really can’t imagine not having him around. It makes every tiny part of her hurt. She even feels a tear threaten to drop. 

“Fine, I get it.”

Gendry rolls her over and kisses her neck and her shoulder, and lower. When he gets to her belly, he tells her,

“So quit worrying about me, whores, and their vaguely defined bedroom activities.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just, this whole trip ended up just making me feel insecure.”

Gendry snorts as his fingers begin to work at her smallclothes. 

“It’s not just you. Everyone we’ve met on this trip seems to want to do nothing more than talk about my father. About how great he was to hunt or feast with when they were younger, how great a warror he was. They never mention how shit a husband or a king he was.”

Arya is suddenly seized by the realization that what she’s just asked might have made it worse. She stills under him and reaches to pull him back up so she can look him in the face.

“You’re not your father. I’ve met him remember? He was old and fat, and while those can happen to the best of us, he also didn’t care about anyone anymore. Not his queen, or his oldest friend, or his subjects. That isn’t you.   
Anytime you need to be reminded of that, come find me and I’ll find a way.” 

Gendry lifts himself up on his elbows to look at her. 

“Shall we get revenge on them all by fucking loudly on their fancy bed?”

Arya pauses, in thought. She then moves to stand up. 

“I have a better idea. Lets sneak out and go fuck on their stupid fancy table instead.”

A slow smile erupts on Gendry’s face, and he stands and grabs her hand to pull her up.

“See what I mean? Seven hells, I like having you around so much.” 

Things get easier when they leave Blackhaven and head for the coast. Arya can tell where they are before they can even see it- she can smell the salt on the air, suddenly stronger. 

It brings her joy. She hadn’t realized how much the sea had become part of her, as much a part as the snow and forests of the north were.

And not just her. 

When the first bit of the ocean comes into view, Lysa and Lyra immediately drop their quarrel over who’s taller (Ely had even brought over a book to show them they were exactly the same height right now). Lyra climbs onto a rock to peer into the water and prepare to dive if the water is deep enough. Lysa simply bellows and rushes into the choppy waves at the coastline. 

They’ve both got Tully fish in their blood, Arya muses, that and they’ve lived by the water their entire lives. 

There are more stops to be had along the coast of the Sea of Dorne, but getting through them is easier on both Gendry and Arya. Ely takes Lysa and Lyra out to swim most days, in waters that far are calmer than Shipbreaker’s Bay is for most of the year. Arya joins them when she can, floating on her back and gazing up at the thick fog that lays over the sea. 

One night when they’re staying in an inn to talk with an emissary from Estermont (so they would not have to make the journey by boat, and Gendry tells her because the keep is in rather poor shape from storms), the sky is somehow perfectly clear. Before bed, Ely touches Arya’s arm and tells her, 

“You should come with us milady, there’s nothing in the world like nightswimming.”

The moon is huge and full, and Arya even manages to convince Gendry to strip to his undershirt and braies and wade in with them. 

Arya finds a large rock and lays down upon it, Gendry soon joining her as Ely teaches Lysa to float on her back while Lyra splashes around. 

“I miss being at sea. If, instead of letting you marry me when I came back I had just kidnapped you and thrown you on my boat, would you have come?”

Gendry stills. 

“So long as it wasn’t the kind of boat I would have to row.”

That’s a good answer. She waits before asking the next. 

“What if I’d asked you before I left Westeros? If i’d asked you to give up the noble life to join me at sea?”

Gendry rolls on his side.

“You didn’t though. I don’t think it’s worth it to get stuck on ifs. We’re here now.”

She smiles and kisses him slowly, once, twice. 

“Where do we still have to stop after this?”

“Rain House. That’s not too bad. The Wylde’s are all loud and fun. Then, hopefully finding an excuse to avoid Griffin’s Roost, then Tarth, then back home.”

She listens with one ear to Ely telling the twins about how the stars and moon that they see in the sky are the same the world over. The sea is too, Arya thinks. All the lakes and rivers that feed into the ocean, that all eventually join the same water. 

The sea here is the same as the sea at Storm’s End, and White Harbour and King’s Landing, and even all the way to Braavos. She’d sailed, learned that if you go off in one direction long enough, you’ll end up right back in the same spot. It’s a nice thought, that if Bran was in the Red Keep looking at the harbour, or Sansa staring off while she sailed from Winterfell, were looking at it now, then they were all looking at the same thing. 

It’s a nice thought, she thinks, for a near perfect night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there SHOULD be only one more chapter after this (this one turned out to be a monster), that leads into the events of In the Bleak Midwinter


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The of this chapter leads straight into part of In the Bleak Midwinter, so you might be a bit lost if you skipped out on that one.

The day before they reach Rain House, a storm breaks out. 

It’s fitting really. They have to break out the oil cloth to keep the water from dripping into everyone’s tents, and by the time they reach the gates, everyone’s nearly soaked. 

They are greeted well though. 

Gendry’s assessment of the Wylde’s as “loud and fun” is not inaccurate. Arya doesn’t think she’s ever met a more boisterous bunch. 

There must be two dozen of them, Lord Casper Wylde, his wife and children and an odd assortment of cousins and other relatives. They greet them enthusiastically, and announce that they’ve arrived just in time for the wedding. 

Turns out, one Wylde cousin is marrying a knight she met a few years back, and it’s in two days, and Gendry and Arya don’t have an excuse to back out. 

Well at least they don’t have to plan anything. 

The morning of, Arya tells Ely to take most of the day off. 

“We’ll run roughshod on the girls today. You can be off until the ceremony is over and the drinks start flowing. Just make sure they get in bed safely after that.”

Ely grins at her. She’d been making eyes at one of the cook’s boys. 

Arya manages to get Lyra and Lysa into their dresses when one of the younger Wylde girls shows up and whisks her away. 

“You have to have a proper gown, it’s a wedding! Come on, we’ll get you fixed up.”

It doesn’t take long, Gendry’s buttoning up the front of his jerkin when she manages to fight her way back in wearing a floofy blue gown. 

“Help,” she tells Gendry, turning her back to him, “loosen my stays, I can’t breathe.”

He grabs the laces obediently and unties them, letting them loosen until Arya takes a deep breath before tying them back. 

“I thought you tied this in the front?”

“It’s not mine,” Arya admits, “she whipped it out of nowhere. This damn thing has whale bones in the sides.”

With the stays loosened, Arya can barely get the gown laced back on. Whatever, it’s not her wedding. 

Gendry somehow has managed to end up wearing a cape of all things. Arya can’t understand it any more than he can. 

The girls are both suitably cute in their patchwork dresses, and they manage to both sit still enough while Arya brushes their hair. She ties it back in thick braids that she loops back and pins to their heads. It’ll keep it from their way.

They even manage to sit still during the entire ceremony for a couple that they don’t know. 

And then once the feast begins, they let loose and race about. 

Thankfully the rest of the Wylde’s guest’s children seem to be following the same path. 

When the sun sets and the kegs of proper wine come out, Arya nods to Ely who seizes a twin in each hand and hauls them off back to their room. 

And Arya and Gendry are now free to get well and properly sloshed. Well, well and properly tipsy at least. 

It’s halfway through her fourth cup of wine that she crawls on to Gendry’s lap. The stars are high in the sky and much of the dance floor has begun to clear for the night. The gown Arya wears is a touch lower cut than anything she usually wears, and it’s clearly caught his eye. 

“So which do you prefer,” Arya asks, flushed with drink, “My arse or my tits?”

“Arya s’not nice to ask hard questions like that.”

His answer makes her giggle, and it goes on for a little too long. Gendry’s only on his third cup of ale and is only a tiny bit red.

“Ok,” Gendry says, beginning to stand, “I think we’ve had enough and better get on with it before we embarrass ourselves and our house.”

Arya feels like she might object, but when Gendry stands, he picks her up in his arms like she weighs nothing. She loves being reminded of how strong he is, though she would loath to admit to loving being carried. 

“Aren’t you glad we skipped all this fuss when we got married?” Arya asks when they cross back into the guest chamber. “All these people, all this fuss.”

She flops back on the bed, still chuckling. Gendry unties the stupid cape and flops beside her on the bed and reaches for her shoulders to pull her into a kiss.

“So long as it ends the same way, I’m good.”

Arya sits up enough to offer him the back of her dress to unlace, and she wiggles out of it, along with her smallclothes and the boned stays. 

“Seven hells, it’s like they want us to go find some handsome stranger to take that off for us.”

She makes quick work of Gendry’s doublet and undershirt, and turns her attention to his breeches. 

“Aww,” she says after pushing them and his smallclothes down his thighs, and finding his cock barely half hard, “I forgot he never wants to wake up when you’ve been drinking.”

“Quit talkin’ to it like it’s not part of me,” Gendry responds grumpily.

Arya shrugs, 

“I can fix that,” she says, setting off to work with her mouth. Truthfully, she enjoys this, sucking him hard instead of sucking him off, and she doesn’t get to do it much.

She’s appreciating the fact that while he’s still a bit soft she can fit his whole cock in her mouth at once, when she feels Gendry tap her thigh. 

“Gimme your leg, and roll on your side.”

Arya realizes what he’s going to do about five seconds before she topples on her left side and his tongue plunges between her folds and she groans. They’d both walked in on Daron and Tim in a similar arrangement. They had been supposed to be hanging the new display netting around the back of the armoury, and Tim had apparently done a bit of acrobatics in a show he’d worked as a child. 

Arya had been suitably impressed, but not to the point that she forgot to yell at them. To this day, they still call her Captain. 

She had been intrigued then too, but it seemed too silly a thing to ask to try when you were sober. Though she imagines it’s much easier laying on your sides than with one person upside down, feet hooked in nets. 

Though, she muses when Gendry lazily circles her nub with his tongue, making her moan around his cock, it could be hazardous and it was probably better she wasn’t any more drunk than this, or her teeth might slip out.

It’s a few minutes later and she’s leisurely licking at the bottom of his shalf when she hears Gendry mutter, 

“Am I at full mast yet?”

Arya pulls her lips off, 

“Looks like.”

He swats her on the hip. 

“Then quit it, I want to fuck you, not spill down your throat.”

Well she can’t really refuse when he puts it like that. She understands too, as much as she loves his fingers and mouth, sometimes she just wants to be full up with him, to not be able to tell where one of them ends and the next begins. She eases up and starts to try and stand up, but Gendry rolls on his back and tugs her leg so she’s kneeling astride his ears. 

They’ve done this before, and Arya’s always scared she’s going to slip and hurt him. Gendry had laughed, and stroked at her quivering thighs, and said, 

“Smothered to death by my wife’s cunt. What a truly awful way to go.”

Like that would be a comfort to her or the twins.

But she hadn’t slipped yet, his strong hands always keep hold. Right now he’s got one bracing her hip and the other holding one of her own to steady her thigh.

The angle’s different, when he slowly slides his tongue through her slippery cunt, lips swollen with desire. He licks, kisses, swirls, nibbles softly at bits, and sometimes just presses his whole face against her, just to breathe her in. It’s not long before Arya’s sure her face is red as a beet, with drink and pleasure. 

The hand on her hip disappears, Arya only dimly being made aware before Gendry slides three fingers into her, just enough to push her over to a shuddering, shaking orgasm. She’s breathing heavy when he removes his fingers and she moves her knee off from around his head. 

She tries to turn over too fast and stumbles onto her back with a laugh. Gendry rolls over to join her. He kisses her, his mouth still shiny, and she laughs more. 

Then she shoves his shoulder and as he stands at the end of the bed, she spreads her legs and displays herself for him. 

“I believe you made a promise,”

He wipes his mouth with one hand, and touches her nose with his own. He runs it down her chin, her neck, to her chest. He pauses to pinch each nipple, and to suck each one into his mouth. Even long since she’d quit breastfeeding the twins, they seem a bit fuller than they used to be, and Gendry is definitely appreciative. 

Her stomach has a bit of a paunch to it now, even years after giving birth. The scars are present, along with the fainter ones from her stretch marks. Arya has never once felt self-conscious under his gaze though. His blue eyes are nearly black as he takes her in. 

He then uses his hands to pull her hips to the edge of the bed, takes one of her feet and pulls the leg onto his shoulder, and slams into her in one deep stroke. 

Arya groans deeply. He’s too far away to touch easily, so she touches herself, rolling her nipples and playing with her nub as he pounds into her.

Steady. Smooth. Deep. Hard. 

Arya moans and grunts and cries out. She’s not usually loud in bed (vocal yes, loud no), but the drink and the pleasure he’s drawing from her is pulling the sounds out of her. He drops her leg, and pushes on top of her, one hand sliding under the curve of her arse to tilt her hips against him. 

She’s close, so close, when he leans to whisper in her ear. 

“Let go, come for me, I want to feel you quiver around my cock.”

All it takes is one soft circle around her nub for her to do as he says. She’s not even done when Gendry groans ferally, and spends inside her, collapsing atop her body. 

Once his breathing evens out, he gathers her in his arms and she nuzzles his ear. 

They’re cleaned up and under the covers a bit later when Gendry asks, 

“So, since everyone in this entire keep and all the other ones too keep on asking me, are we actually trying for another babe?”

Arya wiggles a bit, trying to get comfortable. The wine has mostly left her head, and she doesn’t think she drank enough to feel it too badly in the mornng. Stupid Gendry is apparently nearly sober again, reminding her once again of how much bigger than her he is.

“I don’t know really,” she admits, “I still have the stuff for moon tea in my things, and I’m still going to drink it. But I’m not going to yell at you for coming inside me, and I won’t be upset if I do get pregnant again. I guess I’m leaving things up to the gods. I haven’t done that before…”

Gendry rolls onto her back and wraps an arm around her. 

“If the next one is anything like it’s sisters we’re in for it.”

Arya chuckles. 

“They turn five in a few days.”

“We’re still not telling them?”

Arya nods.

“I sent a letter ahead to Storm’s End, to ask Merope to make their favorite honey cake once we reach Tarth. We’ll tell them once we leave and are sailing home.”

Home, Arya rolls the word around in her mouth. It’s a funny word.

The storm eases up enough for them to leave within the week. Lyra and Lysa both don’t want to, the younger Wylde’s living up to their names when it came to occupying the bodies and minds of young children as much they did with throwing a party. 

“They was tellin’ us bout one of the Wylde’s who tried to escape during the siege of Storm’s End,” Lyra says when they’re packing up the horses. Gendry winces. He knows how that story ended. Storm’s End still bears the scars, on both the structure and the people, of Stannis’s assault. 

And, as a bonus, the storm starts up again as they prepare to board the boat to go north to Tarth, giving them the perfect excuse to skip out on visiting Griffin’s Roost and sending a raven instead. 

“Why did you want to avoid them so badly?” Arya asks when the party embarks. 

“Jon Connington was stripped of his lands and his lordly title for not joining Robert’s Rebellion. Whether or not that was fair, I can’t really say, but the last time I visited, Ronnet, the current heir, did nothing but constantly hint that the title should be returned. It was the most irritating thing in the whole trip.”

Gendry lowers his voice, 

“And I heard from someone that he was once betrothed to Brienne, which he broke off immediately upon seeing her. That did nothing to make me think favorably of him.”

This is true, Arya thinks, as they sail off for Tarth. The boat they charter for the journey is quite large, enough to make room for all their men and the horses too. It’s not the size of the Nymeria though, Arya thinks. The voyage doesn’t quite take a full day, and once they get away from the coast, the rain lets up a bit. 

Arya stands up on deck, looking over at the water, her cloak pulled over her face. Gendry and Lysa are safely below deck, seeing to the horses, and Arya had noticed Lysa looking a bit green. 

She barely has time to reminisce before Lyra walks quietly up next to her.

“Finding your sea legs?”

Lyra looks confusedly down at her legs, so Arya grabs her hand. 

“It’s a figure of speech. It means getting used to the boat rocking and shifting under you.”

“S’not bad,” Lyra says, though she pulls herself up to sit on a barrel. “Did you really captain a boat like this all the way around the world?”

Arya smiles with nostalgia. 

“Not all the way, but I sailed for three years, made it all the way to Essos. Daron and Tim were with me, haven’t they told you lots of stories?”

Lyra nods. Daron and Tim are great for stories, and also for getting into not-entirely-child-safe mischief.

“They said they sailed with you, and then you came home and married Father. Could I do that? Sail round the whole world?”

Arya smiles, 

“There’s a whole world out there, who knows where it might take you?”

Lyra looks at her feet. 

“Lysa says I gotta stay home and be Lady of Storm’s End though.”

Oh, that’s what this is about. Arya still questions if she should have even told Lysa about that. She knows that sometimes Lysa resents getting yelled at so much more than her sister, and she’ll have to be careful that she knows that her and Gendry don’t think any differently of her because of it. She throws an arm around Lyra. 

“You don’t know that. We could decide Lysa is better at it. You could get enchanted away by the first boy who winks at you, Lysa could end up a brilliant strategist. It’s supposed to be whoever’s older, but I don’t actually know that. This isn’t the kind of thing we decide when you’re five.”

Lyra’s eyes go wide and Arya bites her tongue.

“When did we turn five?” the little girl demands. 

Arya grabs her by the cloak before she can race off. 

“You’ll turn five when we get back to Storm’s End where all your friends are. Merope’s making honey cake,” she adds, as a bribe to keep quiet. Lyra pouts, but doesn’t say a word. 

Tarth is beautiful, Arya thinks when it comes into view on the horizon. Even in the fog, the deep blue waters and vivid green hills are a vision. 

Selwyn Tarth is younger than Arya expected, and she doesn’t recognize the woman at his side. With a pang, she recalls Brienne remembering that her father had a different woman seemingly every year, but supposes, out on this island, he must be quite lonely. 

He greets them warmly though, with a hug for both girls. 

“Thank you for Thistle,” Lysa tells him, as Gendry instructed her to do on the boat. “She didn’t think much of the ride though.”

Tarth is comfortable, and they linger, taking their time before leaving. The last night before they do, Gendry and Arya sit down with Selwyn, to make sure there’s nothing else he wants them to bring up in a few moons when they have to leave for the small council meeting. 

“No,” he responds, head in his hands, “Aside from maybe requesting that our grace allows me daughter more time to come and visit.”

He sighs deeply before continuing, 

“I know the chances of me having another heir at my age are slim. And with Brienne in the Kingsguard, I’m not likely to get any grandchildren either. I suppose I should just accept that my house name will die out with me.”

Gendry bites back his words. While he knows there are far worse things, this is such a concern to so many, especially with so many recent deaths. 

“You could name someone,” Arya interjects, “Nobles have had to do that before. The issue of names might be difficult, but at least you’ll know your home will be taken care of.”

That makes him brighten a bit, if not all the way. 

But soon, the week is over and they reboard the boat to sail for Storm’s End. Selwyn bids them to remind Brienne not to forget about him,

Lyra and Lysa return home to a huge honey cake, and everyone in Storm’s End celebrating. They’ve been five for a moon and a half, and hardly get another one and a half before they all have to leave for King’s Landing. 

That’s a moon and a half they all get to spend in their own beds. Arya treasures Gendry’s arms every wet, stormy morning.

“Why are we going again,” Gendry asks as they’re packing up. Lyra and Lysa are already on Thistle. 

Arya sighs and rolls her eyes. He knows very well. 

“Because Bran doesn’t really need a traditional small council, so he decided to just call representatives from the paramount houses in all the kingdoms. And that means us.”

She mounts her horse, and thinks about the letters Bran has sent her in the past years, and wonders if anyone else knows anything at all. She wonders if Jon knows that they’re brother is himself again, wonders how Sansa reacted to learning of his off-the-books marriage. She wonders how Bran himself thinks of being king. 

When they see the city over the horizon, Arya feels a twinge. The city is full of so many horrible memories. She wonders if the burned buildings are still there. Her nose twitches at the stench. 

Lyra gags and covers her nose. 

“It’s always smelled like that,” Gendry tells her, “Why do you think I left?”

She’s still holding her nose when they ride past where you can see the harbour. 

“Wow! It’s so much bigger than Shipbreaker’s Bay.”

As they enter the gate, Lysa quietly asks. 

“Is the King really our uncle?”

Arya nods, 

“My sec-my youngest brother. He’s not really traditionally a king though, he was chosen. That’s why the rest of us are coming, so we can help him choose other things.”

She bites her lip before the next line. 

“He’s not...he was sick for a long time. So sometimes he might say things that scare you. Don’t be afraid to tell him that, or us.”

She doesn’t tell them how much Bran hopes that the rest of the council will grow so weary of his flat and unemotional facade that they will learn to deal with each other instead of him. That one day Westeros will not need a king, and the throne can die with him.

Going through the streets, full of half-rebuilt buildings, Arya watches Gendry go stiff. 

“Hey,” she reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder in comfort. “How are you doing up there?”

He takes a deep breath. 

“S’okay. This isn’t home. We don’t have to stay.”

He sounds like he’s still having to convince himself. 

They reach the Red Keep, and all Arya can think of is the porpoise dream. When Bran comes out to greet them, in that strange wooden chair, her face lights up. It lights up even more when she realizes there is light behind his eyes. 

His eyes too, light up, when he sees Lyra and Lysa, and he even lets them ride with him in his chair when he shows them to the guest chambers. 

Sam and Gilly are here, and little Sam and his sister Nella. The twins are already trailing after them. Brienne ie here too and Sansa is here ahead of them too. People are arriving every day, Sansa says. Arya’s heart feels full. This is as many of her old friends have been in one place in far too long.

During introductions, Sansa introduces her to an unassuming looking woman with dark curly hair. 

“Oh!” Arya exclaims, “Meera, it’s so strange to finally have a face to put to the name.”

Bran had commented that she reminded him much of her. Arya’s still not sure if that was meant as a compliment, but she hopes. Part of her feels like she already knows her just from Bran’s letters.

Sansa squeezes her arm. 

“It’s nice to know that Bran felt the urge to tell ONE of his sisters…” with a measured amount of venom in her voice.

Meera smiles a bit shyly. 

“Since the snow’s gone for a bit, I was going to take Sam and Nella down to the river for a swim. Do you all want to come? You must be tired from the ride.”

Arya nods. She touches Gendry on the arm. 

“Want to get out of this castle?”

“Yes please.”

“Don’t worry about the sewer,” Sansa whispers, “Lord Tyrion’s working on completely rerouting the drains and cisterns in the city, it drains closer to the bay now. Says he hopes to do something about the ungodly stench this city has, and make it healthier for everyone.”

Gendry looks like he wants to hug Tyrion just for that. 

“I straight up can’t imagine King’s Landing without the smell,” he comments when they’re leaving to go to the river, “It’s strange enough seeing the buildings that aren’t all crammed together and the neat, wide roads.”

Lyra and Lysa are peppering Meera with questions, as she is the new adult in the room. Sam and Nella butt in to answer now and then. That’s how they learn about how long it’s been since it’s snowed, about the school Sam and Gilly are working on forming, about the new Lady of the Reach (a Fossoway cousin Bran had found after Bronn had predictably gone off to parts unknown very soon after the last council meeting. Arya knew Bran had to have seen that coming). 

Gendry groans when he strips off his boots and socks to sink his feet in the river and the others shed their outer clothing and dip into the water. Arya notices him eyeing Meera. 

When she gives him a curious look, he whispers,

“She’s holding herself funny. She walks like you do, but something’s off.”

Arya wrinkles her brow. Gendry’s not got a bad eye for body language, he’s too big to have avoided getting in fights too much of his life. 

They’ve been out here a little while when Meera finally admits. 

“How long are you going to stay?”

Arya’s taken aback, 

“A moon or two, as long as the meeting takes.”

Meera bites her lip. 

“Bran’s going to ask if I can leave with you for Storm’s End when you go.”

Arya’s taken aback. 

“It’s not a- but why?”

Meera leans back slightly and lays both her hands on her stomach. 

Arya’s astonished, but Gendry nods, “That makes sense.” Arya splashes him. 

“It’s just a...a wrench in plans.”

Arya feels anger raise in her throat. Plans, that’s what it always was. 

“What’s Storm’s End like?” Meera asks loudly enough to interrupt the thought, and loudly enough that Lysa and Lyra can jump in. 

They tell her about the boats, and the ocean, and the huge cliff that the keep sits on. Arya finds herself drifting, back to Weeping Town and Jas. To the little cave below the cellars. 

Gendry’s clearly caught her in thought, because he tugs her under her arms so that she’s sitting in his lap. 

Her mind goes to Ely and Merope and Daron and Tim. She gazes over her shoulder at Gendry, over to her daughters in the water. She thinks on the storms and flooding rains that have come and gone and still Storm’s End stood. It was still a rock. 

Home, she thought, it was home.


End file.
